WP Rocket
Product Name: WP Rocket
Summary
In this review, real before-and-after PageSpeed Insights benchmarks are analyzed for both mobile and desktop devices. This breakdown helps users understand whether WP Rocket is the right optimization solution for their website.
Did you know that a lot of factors play a role in enhancing the WordPress site speed?
These include:
- The type of hosting server you use
- Image compression and caching techniques
- Lazy loading
- Page Caching
- CDN Integration
- Number of active plugins
- And more.
Achieving a good loading speed for websites on mobile devices is significantly more challenging compared to desktop devices.
Yes, I am speaking from experience.
Unlike many others, we have demonstrated how much WP Rocket improves page speed specifically for mobile devices.
If you have a web developer on your team, these optimizations can be implemented through custom coding.
However, for most beginners, performance optimization plugins handle the majority of the work effectively.
I have been using the WP Rocket plugin on all my sites.
There is no doubt that WP Rocket enhances the performance of a WordPress site.
If you have a budget, then you can consider it for sure. Otherwise, there are free alternatives out there that can also do some speed work.
The key question is: Can it increase the page speed score?
Well, let’s check out…
Table of Contents
My Website Loading Speed on Mobile & Desktop Devices (Before and After WP Rocket)
Today, I am showing you the benchmarks of my main website.
Here the WP Rocket has been installed for many years.
I am using the GeneratePress theme on this site. There are 30 active plugins, and currently, no third-party page builder plugin is installed.
With 30 plugins activated, you might consider the site relatively heavy.
With this, you can estimate how much performance boost you might expect on your own site after applying WP Rocket’s configurations
For performance optimization, I am also using the free ShortPixel Image Optimizer plugin. This specifically helps improve image delivery and loading efficiency.
The testing is done by Google Page Speed Insights tool.
Anyway, as of now, if I am unplugging the WP Rocket back and after these are the benchmarks I am getting…
| Category | Metric / Issue | Before WP Rocket | After WP Rocket | Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Performance Score | PSI Performance | 70 | 98 | +28 points |
| Core Web Vitals (Field Data) | CWV Assessment | Passed | Passed | Stable |
| Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) | 2.0 s | 2.0 s | Maintained | |
| Interaction to Next Paint (INP) | 154 ms | 154 ms | Maintained | |
| Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) | 0 | 0 | Stable | |
| First Contentful Paint (FCP – field) | 1.8 s | 1.8 s | Stable | |
| Time to First Byte (TTFB – field) | 1.1 s | 1.1 s | Stable | |
| Lab Metrics | First Contentful Paint | 2.0 s | 1.3 s | Faster |
| Largest Contentful Paint | 7.3 s | 2.3 s | Major improvement | |
| Total Blocking Time | 60 ms | 0 ms | Eliminated | |
| Speed Index | 5.5 s | 2.3 s | Faster | |
| Cumulative Layout Shift | 0 | 0 | Stable | |
| Opportunities (Before) | Render Blocking Requests | 1,630 ms savings | Removed | Fixed |
| Improve Image Delivery | 241 KiB savings | Reduced to 25 KiB | Optimized | |
| Efficient Cache Lifetimes | 71 KiB savings | Reduced to 30 KiB | Improved | |
| Legacy JavaScript | 13 KiB savings | Not flagged | Removed | |
| Reduce Unused CSS | 51 KiB savings | 12 KiB | Reduced | |
| Reduce Unused JS | 123 KiB savings | Not flagged | Removed | |
| Minify JavaScript |